Should DBA have access to sar and top?

I came to a new shop as a DBA recently and discovered I am not allowed to
use either sar or top on a Unix server where Oracle database is installed.
Unix system administrator gave me some explanation why DBA is not allowed
to have access to sar and top, but to me it sounds ridiculous, to put it
modestly. I can't see how can one be expected to do serious Oracle
performance tuning and troubleshooting without those tools. I'm curious if
any of you ever ran into similar nonsense and how have you handled it.
Here's what I've was told:

"SAR and Top are system administrator tools and are therefore not required
by any other users. System performance monitoring is an expressed function
of the systems administrator. It is clearly stated in our job descriptions
as being part of our responsibilities. This responsibility is not
indicated in the job description of DBA's.

Additionally, these tools inflict an overhead of system resources, which
could compromise the running of a server if not controlled properly. SAR
especially utilizes a great number of resources (especially if all of the
parameters are used). Currently TNG is running performance monitoring (SAR
in the background) and we run performance metrics as well. If other users
also run these same monitors it would be a gross and unnecessary misuse of
server resources and undermine the integrity of the system with which we
are charged to maintain. Systems administrators are responsible for the
monitoring of all applications on the platform (Oracle, Unicenter, FTP
etc.) DBA's are responsible for the performance of their own individual
application and as such may use the dedicated OEM and statsback utilities."

Any comments are appreciated.
Received on Fri Mar 26 2004 - 21:36:10 CST